Does anyone have any idea why SE won't let cooks be able to HQ on things like meatballs, insect paste or any bait for that matter? :( If you can HQ these things the same way you can with arrows, it would save more time since they now stack to 99.

(BTW things like slice of bluetail only craft in to 4 per synth so it takes a lot of fish to make one stack of 99.)

Back in the day, I thought the purpose of recipes that couldn't be HQ'd was so low-level crafters could still participate in the market without throwing money out the window. Sushi, mithkabobs, and the like were subsidized by their HQs, but insect balls, melon juices, and other similar items were good ways to practice playing the Auction House game, but since they couldn't be HQ'd, it was often cheaper (by means of being faster) to simply buy what the lowbie crafters were selling, which stimulates both ends of the market.

At this point, though, where "the climb" is less of the focus of the current game, I think it's just an oversight.

Maybe your right on that but even with a stack of bluetail being 40k a stack of 99, it's not even profitable to make if you don't farm your own crystals. The only lowbie synth that is profitable for those who have no crafting skill in any decipline these days would be copper ingots as they tend to supply the fisherman who turn them in to minnows/sinking minnows.